While reports of drones near airports are increasing in the United States and Europe, for the moment every drone impact on an airliner has resulted in a little crumpled sheet metal. Airliners have been designed to withstand bird strikes much more frequently than pseudo-contacts with UAVs, but will they be able to withstand collisions with UAVs that will inevitably occur in the future? A scientific study commissioned by the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) and the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE) has accurately assessed the damage of a drone on an airliner. Initial results could lead to tighter aviation regulations.

Saint-Gobain chose its production plant in Sully-sur-Loire to deploy collaborative robots among its workers. Robots will help them in a particularly difficult task: polishing special glass.
A new illustration of the arrival of industrial 4.0 concepts in a company more than 350 years old.

The idea for this robotic kit was born in IBM Research’s labs. Known as TJBot, named after IBM’s first president Thomas J. Watson, it is a kit designed to illustrate how IBM Watson artificial intelligence can be embedded. This cardboard robot is powered by a simple Raspberry Pi 3 card, but above all it is connected to IBM Cloud servers. It benefits from IBM’s Watson artificial intelligence capabilities. An original way to popularize Watson to DIY communities and especially to connected object designers, a potentially juicy market where competition between AI platforms is fierce.

The ScanPyramids project made headlines a few weeks ago, with the announcement of the discovery of a large cavity in the Kheops pyramid by the ScanPyramids team. The CEA’s archaeologists and scientists used muon detectors, particles from cosmic radiation, which allowed them to detect a cavity about 30 metres long in the heart of the great pyramid. We now have to explore this unknown space without taking the risk of destroying the archaeological treasures that have perhaps crossed centuries in this secret cavity. Inria and CNRS researchers are working on a particularly original drone/robot, a balloon drone that will literally be injected inside the pyramid.